For a mobile communication system, along with the deployment of femtocells, pico cells and micro cells, a traditional homogeneous network merely consisting of macro cells will evolve to become a heterogeneous network (Hetnet) consisting of various types of cells.
As shown in FIG. 1, in a heterogeneous network consisting of both macro cells and pico cells, the macro cells and the pico cells may achieve an identical function, although with different coverage regions. For example, these cells may be used to control switching of User Equipments (UEs). Each pico cell is located within the coverage region of the macro cell, and may have a frequency identical to, or different from, the macro cell.
When the UE moves to an edge of a cell, it is required to switch a serving cell, so as to ensure the service quality. For a traditional switching procedure, when the quality of a signal from an adjacent cell detected by the UE meets a certain specific measurement event for a period of time, e.g., time-to-trigger (TTT), the switching may be triggered. When the UE moves at a high speed, the signal quality at the serving cell may be degraded quickly. At this time, when the TTT is longer, the cell switching may be later, resulting in a wireless link failure for the UE. When the network can acquire movement information of the UE, it is able to configure a shorter TTT for the UE at a high speed, so as to switch the UE into a target cell timely, thereby to ensure the communication performance.
In the case of the heterogeneous network, the system performance may be affected by the speed of the UE. At a network side, parameter configuration may be optimized in accordance with the movement information of the UE, e.g., relevant parameters may be switched or the parameters may be measured at different frequencies, so as to ensure the entire communication performance.
However, it is currently able for the network side to acquire the movement information of the UE in accordance with its cell switching times after the UE has been switched into a connection state for a period of time. Before the acquisition of the movement information, it is impossible to optimize the parameter configuration. Hence, the entire communication performance may be adversely affected.
In a word, it is merely able for the network side, after the UE has been switched into the connection state for a period of time, to acquire the movement information of the UE in accordance with its cell switching times. Hence, it is impossible to optimize the parameter configuration for the UE in time, thereby the entire communication performance may be adversely affected.